


the first to go

by irishmizzy



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Camping, M/M, Team Bonding, Teambuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:05:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishmizzy/pseuds/irishmizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was sad when the great ship went down or: Fury gets fed up and sends the Avengers on a corporate retreat.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the first to go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [torigates](https://archiveofourown.org/users/torigates/gifts).



“Don’t!” Steve yells.

Tony has just enough time to glance over and give a thumbs up before he dives back into the fight. 

“I’m sorry, Cap, did you say something?” he asks over the comm. Sure, it’s petty, but nobody’s ever called Tony the most mature one on _any_ team.

**

After Thor took Loki and the Tesseract back to Asgard, Tony had enjoyed relative peace for almost six months before Fury had come calling, crying ‘alligators who crawled out of Lake Michigan hellbent on destroying everything in their path.’

After that it had been sentient trees in Oregon and someone claiming to harness the power of water flooding the streets of Manhattan, power-hungry villain after psychotic loner, and eventually they realized that what had worked well against Loki was useless in other situations. The unifying power of grief has a shelf life, it would seem.

Space monsters keep showing up and shooting at buildings, at civilians, at Tony. Call it the daily grind, call it a squeaky wheel, call it whatever you want: eventually, things start to fall apart.

**

Here’s the thing: Tony actually enjoys avenging shit. It feels good to throw on the suit and blow shit up in the name of justice, he’s never denied that. And he likes doing it with other people -- contrary to popular belief, he _is_ capable of playing well with others.

It’s just the following orders part that rankles. There’s a reason superheroes tend to work alone or in pairs -- it’s because they’re all shit at following directions. Tony doesn’t need someone in his ear directing traffic; he’s got Jarvis for that. 

Tony wasn’t made to be a soldier.

**

“Stark, don’t retract your faceplate in the field!” Steve yells as a spray of gravel flies through the air.

Tony ends up with a butterfly bandage above his eye; it’s not even the worst injury he’s had this week (that honor goes to a soldering iron burn), but no one cares when he tells them that.

Fury doesn’t care about bloodshed, though. The rest of it -- the fighting, the disobeying direct orders, Thor challenging Clint to a leaping-across-buildings competition mid-fight, Tony drinking in debriefings -- he’s pretty pissed about.

“This. Ends. Now,” Fury says. He glares at each of them long enough that even Natasha shifts in her seat. “Now,” he reiterates, and then he’s leaving.

“Did anyone catch when this is supposed to end?” Tony asks, because he can’t resist and the silence in the room is horrible and heavy.

Bruce would’ve laughed, he thinks ruefully. But Bruce cited stress and fucked off to India three weeks ago so all Tony gets is the echo of Steve’s footsteps as he stalks out without a word.

**

Things are mercifully quiet after that.

At least, they’re quiet until one afternoon when Tony’s up to his elbows in metal and wires, bass thumping, when the call comes in and suddenly Tony’s standing on the edge of the Delaware River, planning an attack on a nuclear reactor.

“Fucking nuclear power plants,” Tony says. “Can we destroy the whole thing and call it an accident? If we all fill out the forms the same way, Fury’ll have to believe us, right?”

“No,” is all Steve says. Tony makes a face at his back.

“Bruce Willis used to work here,” Clint says, climbing down from a cell tower. “I think the best way in is from the left.”

“What? Why do you know that?” Tony asks, at the same time as Steve says, “Right has fewer security guards.”

“It was in the briefing packet. And yeah, but going in from the right is stupid in the long run, it should be left.”

“Why was Bruce Willis even in the briefing packet? That doesn’t seem relevant,” Tony says to absolutely no one, since Thor is busy swinging his hammer and Clint and Steve are arguing over entry points. Natasha’s on a mission of her own -- “Siberia,” was all Clint had said when Tony’d asked, but Hill had said “the Congo,” and Fury had said, “Sipping mai tais on a fucking beach somewhere, what’s it to you?” so Tony has no idea where, exactly. Not that she’d be listening to his Bruce Willis rant, anyway. She landed firmly on Team Pepper when it came down to that and now, well, Tony's fine, mostly. So long as he avoids Natasha and anything with a sharp edge. Or a blunt edge. Or a bullet. 

“What have you got against Bruce Willis? I’m sure it’s a perfectly nice guy.”

“You.” Tony points, tamping down the excitement he can feel bubbling in his chest. “I’m not speaking to you. Will someone please inform Dr. Banner that I’m not speaking to him.”

“I’m sorry,” Thor says, “But Tony is not --”

“I heard, thanks,” Bruce says, laughing. “What’s the word, Cap?”

“Ten, maybe fifteen men holding a nuclear reactor. Unknown number of hostages. Hawkeye and Thor are going to provide aerial coverage while Iron Man and I go in this entrance here --” he points to the right entrance, ignoring Clint’s protest, “Iron Man will hopefully disable --”

“Hopefully? What, you don’t have any faith in me?”

Steve looks at him, exasperation evident on his face. “ _Hopefully_ the core will be disabled, I’ll bring any hostages out. We’ll need you running interference on the ground, keeping anybody else from getting in, if you can.”

“Welcome back, Bruce,” Clint says. Bruce shrugs and looks at the ground. 

“Ah, well, I heard you were short a pair of hands, so.”

Tony shrugs. “Yeah, those hands are in Rio busting up a gambling ring, but yours’ll do.”

“We’ve been short for a while,” Steve says, shooting Tony a disapproving look before clapping Bruce on the back. “It’s good to have you back. Ready?”

Bruce nods, the rest of the team a second behind him. 

“On my signal,” Steve says, and Tony has just enough time to wink at Bruce before the faceplate engages and Cap’s giving them the go-sign.

It takes fifteen minutes for shit to hit the fan. Tony’s pretty sure it’s a new team record.

**

"ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR DAMN MINDS?”

For a minute Tony thinks Fury might actually murder them all and the greatest injustice is that for once, none of it was Tony’s fault. He was just trying to disable the reactor, locked in his own headspace, while Clint and Cap were arguing about strategy over the comms. They’d been too busy disagreeing about a plan of attack to notice the attack had come to them. Things had devolved from there, obviously, and now they’re both ashamed and angry, stewing at opposite ends of the table. 

Thor’s in between them, pissed because the Hulk punched him mid-fight and he ended up in the river.

“I might as well call the Fantastic fucking Four in,” Fury says. “At least with those fools I know i’m getting a half-assed job done by reckless idiots who can’t follow orders.”

Steve leans forward in his seat. “Sir --”

“No, Captain, I’m talking, so you listen. All of you need. to learn. to listen.”

It’s silent in the room for a minute. Tony opens his mouth to make a crack about listening to nothing, but Bruce kicks him in the ankle. Fury sighs. “Barton, quit bleeding all over my table and get your ass down to medical. The rest of you, quit making faces at each other and fill out your damn sit-reps. This is a government agency, not a kindergarten.” 

He leaves and Tony waits for a minute, scrawls his name and the date at the top of the form before he asks, ”Do you think “we almost blew up New Jersey” is detailed enough for him?”

Bruce snorts -- it’s good to be the only kids in class _not_ in trouble -- but Cap glares at him. “Did you not hear a single word he said?” 

“Oh, I heard it, I just didn’t really... care?” Tony says. Cap stares stonily. “I mean, Fury storms in, yells about what we did wrong, throws some paperwork on the table and storms out. It’s the same episode every week and I gotta tell you, it feels a little stale.” He shrugs, holds Steve’s stare. 

It goes on for far too long, the staring competition, until Thor says, “This ice is most delicious! What flavor would you call it?” and they all have to convince him to stop eating the blue chemical ice from the pack medical had given him.

**

Tony climbs out of the car and pulls up short when he sees Steve standing there.

“Pepper told me this was a shareholders’ meeting. It’s not, is it? Is that a log cabin?”

“Fury’s idea.” Clint drops out of a tree and lands a few feet from Tony. It startles Happy enough that he drops one of Tony’s suitcases and curses quietly. “Apparently we’re going to learn to act like a team or die trying. And yeah, it’s a cabin.”

“Nope.” Tony shakes his head and points to Happy. “Let’s go. Back in the car. Now. Pepper, hi, it’s me, what the _fuck_ is going on?”

“Oh, you’re there already?” Pepper says, “You made good time.”

Tony’s fingers tighten on his phone as he resists the urge to throw it into the bushes. “Is this some kind of sick joke?”

“Knowing Director Fury, probably,” Pepper says. Tony laughs hollowly. Out of the corner of his eye, Tony notices Steve talking earnestly to Happy, his arms moving in the same rigid way Tony recognizes from when they’re in the field. Oh no.

“This is the meanest thing you’ve ever done to me,” he says to Pepper, ignoring the way she scoffs. “Is it payback of some kind? Because I thought you got it all out of your system when you left for Malibu, but apparently there’s some lingering resentment.”

“We’ve been over this a million times, Tony. There’s no resentment,” Pepper says. Tony would probably take comfort in that if he weren’t so busy watching the way Happy’s nodding at something Steve said, shaking his hand and then moving towards the car.

“Crap,” Tony says.

“It’ll be good for you!” Pepper calls out, just before he hangs up and makes a beeline toward the car.

He’s too slow, though, and Happy’s pulling away, yelling, “Sorry, boss!” through the open window as he goes.

“Et tu, Happy?” Tony yells after him, while Clint laughs and laughs.

**

It’s a whole thing, apparently, according to the packet Tony’s handed once Clint and Steve drag him into the lobby. A whole ‘building corporate togetherness and synergy and bullshit’ thing.

“I’m not wearing a name tag,” Tony says, eyeing the plastic-coated paper disdainfully.

“But how will I earn to communicate effectively with you if I don’t know your name?” Clint asks, pointing to one of the scheduled seminar. Its title so long and boring that Tony stops reading after “What’s Your Point? Effective Strategies...” 

He’s contemplating a new escape plan when the lobby doors swing open. 

“Ah, Christ,” Clint says, and then he disappears. 

“That’s fucking creepy, the way he does that,” Tony says, and then he follows Steve’s gaze to where Natasha’s just strolled through the front doors. she’s still in her SHIELD-issued suit, clearly fresh off her mission to Rio, and she does not look pleased about it.

Her hair’s longer, a length Tony hasn’t seen since --

“Hey, you look familiar,” he says. “Natalie, is it?”

“Don’t,” she says, eyes narrowed. That’s eerily familiar, too. “Let me see.” She holds out her hand and Tony passes over his welcome packet.

“Seriously?” She rolls her eyes. “I am not wearing a name tag.”

Tony laughs and ignores the way Steve’s jaw goes tight, the way it always does when people are blatantly disobeying rules. No matter how stupid the rules are.

“Where’s Barton?”

“He went -- that way?” Tony gestures vaguely behind them. 

“Room 204,” Steve says. Natasha nods and leaves and it’s just the two of them. Tony notices that Steve’s already wearing his name tag. Of course.

“Well, _Steve_ ,” he says. “Be a pal and grab these bags for me?”

It’s hilarious the way all the muscles in Steve’s back go tense when he looks at Tony’s luggage. 

**

The first thing Tony does when he meets up with everyone else for their first seminar is reach over and unpin the name tag from Bruce’s shirt.

“You’re late,” is all Bruce says.

“In places like this time is usually more of a suggestion than a hard construct.”

Bruce hums. “Been to a lot of corporate retreats, have you?”

“You know -- oh, I’m sorry, what was your name again?”

Bruce rolls his eyes and turns his attention back to their new corporate spirit guide, Gary, whose job requires far too much enthusiastic clapping for Tony to take him seriously.

**

“So you’ll be starting today off with trust falls!” Gary claps. His enthusiasm is met with the same blank stares he got when he told them they’d have to wear helmets on most of the company’s obstacle courses.

“Nope,” Tony says, ignoring the look Steve shoots him. It carries a lot less weight than usual since Steve is the only one wearing his bright yellow New Frontiers helmet. “That’s a good look for you, Cap. Did someone get a picture of this?”

“There will be time for pictures later,” Gary says, missing the point. “Now: trust falls! Tony, how would you like to go first?”

Tony laughs because there is literally nothing he would like to do less than that. Gary doesn’t even flinch, he just keeps looking at Tony all wide-eyed and eager. It’s unnerving.

“Listen,” Tony says, “a while back I fell all the way from outer space to Earth and Mean Joe over here caught me so believe me when I say I’m good, trust-wise and falling-wise.”

Gary kind of blinks, stunned, before he turns to Tony’s left and says, “How about you?”

Clint looks at Natasha and says, “Prague, ‘07,” and she shrugs, counters with, “And Berlin.”

“Nope, we’re good, thanks,” Clint says, smiling at Gary.

“Falling makes the Other Guy nervous,” Bruce says before anyone can ask and Tony assumes Gary’s been briefed on that because he blanches.

“Okay,” he says, voice a little shaky, a little disappointed.

So of course that’s when Steve takes a step forward and says, “I’ll do it. Thor can catch me.”

“It would be a great honor,” Thor says, grinning, and then Tony has to spend twenty minutes standing in the hot sun listen to Gary explain to Thor that no, higher _isn’t_ necessarily better.

“But is it not true that the farther the fall, the deeper the trust?”

“He’s got you there, Gary,” Tony says. “C’mon, Steve, Barton’ll give you a boost up that tree and we’ll see how deep your inner-rivers run.”

Steve’s face goes dark. “I don’t see you volunteering, Stark.”

Tony grins. “Outer space, remember? Now up you go.”

“Please don’t,” Gary says, his hand outstretched as if to stop Clint from carrying Steve up the nearest evergreen.

“Let’s just do this,” Steve says, climbing the wooden platform that’s barely five feet off the ground. He crosses his arms over his chest and falls backwards into Thor’s outstretched arms. 

“Usually everyone in the group catches their falling teammate,” Gary points out while Thor laughs and bounds onto the platform.

“He’ll be fine,” Clint says, taking a step back from where Steve’s waiting, arms out.

Instead of falling backwards, Thor takes a running leap. The height he gets is seriously impressive. He’s laughing even as he sails over Steve’s head.

“Oh God,” Gary says, so quiet that Tony barely hears him over Clint’s applause.

**

It’s fun watching Steve slowly grow to hate everything that’s happening as much as the rest of them do. By the time they’re being forced to sit through an hour-long lecture on the marriage of independence and teamwork (“The Power of YOU-nity!”), he looks just as annoyed about being here as Tony is.

“What’s the over-under on how many times he says ‘union’ in the next five minutes?” Tony asks him, and it’s not fair that he’s stuck next to Steve because Steve just frowns and shushes him. Then he sits up a little straighter and leans in like he’s interested in this hokey bullshit.

“Fine,” Tony whispers, “But I was going to give you a hundred bucks if you won, so it’s your loss. You could’ve bribed Thor to do the zip line without a harness.”

Steve shushes him again, but it’s much less effective this time, when Tony can see that he’s hiding a grin in his hand. It’s a stupid thing to be proud of but, well, Tony’s always been proud of stupid things. 

**

The purpose of the ropes course is -- something. It’s not important, all Tony knows is he’s supposed to get from one end to the next. Steve and Thor are on the ground with megaphones, ostensibly so they can guide everyone else from one side to the other as quickly as possible. Gary’s in charge of the stopwatch.

“Well isn’t this grand,” Tony says, thirty feet off the ground. The siren on Thor’s megaphone goes off again and Tony winces.

“Could be worse,” Bruce says from somewhere behind him.

“How?”

There’s a pause and then, “I don’t know, Gary could be Loki in disguise?”

Tony can see Clint and Natasha both freeze. He turns around, horrified. “Why? Why would you even _suggest_ such a thing?”

“Clint, if you take three steps to your left, you can catch up with Natasha,” Steve calls up. Clint takes two steps and goes from balancing on a rope to swinging through the air in the blink of an eye. He catches himself on the nearest wooden platform quick enough, before his harness even has a chance to engage.

“What the hell, Nat?” Clint yells, hauling himself up. 

“The entire team is supposed to make it across, not just one person,” says Gary, and that’s when Tony realizes Natasha’s standing on the final platform and that the rope Clint had been standing on has been severed. 

“Well fought!” Thor blasts his siren again. Natasha grins, tucks her knife back into a pocket Tony didn’t even know she had.

Clint sees it, too, and takes a running leap, using the ropes like monkey bars to propel himself towards the platform Natasha’s on. She takes off before he lands, running back across the course towards the start, haphazardly cutting ropes to try and trip Clint up.

“No running on the ropes course!” Gary shrieks.

“Uh, we’re going to need a new route,” Bruce points out, leaning out of the way as Natasha ducks by. 

Tony looks down to see Steve and Thor staring up at them; Thor, at least, looks delighted. Steve’s face has too many things going on for Tony to parse.

“Left or right?” Tony asks. It’s really something to see the way Steve’s face shifts from distracted into Army mode. He checks out the remaining ropes before pointing left, finding an intact path for Tony and Bruce to follow. 

Steve guides them through the whole thing, walking under the ropes they’re on. After a few minutes he drops the megaphone and just calls up to them normally; Tony focuses on his voice, tunes out Clint’s cursing and Thor’s shouted encouragements and concentrates on Bruce, two steps behind him, and Steve, thirty feet underneath.

“You need to go left, take that one, and then climb up there, and then right -- see?” Steve points out the way he wants Tony and Bruce to follow. They’re close to the end, thank fuck, because Tony was ready to be done with this a lifetime ago, way before the Wonder Twins turned it into a psychotic death trap.

“Got it,” he says. Bruce nods.

Tony’s inching his way across, halfway to the rope ladder Steve wants him climb up, when he hears Clint yell, “Coming through!” and suddenly Tony’s falling.

The ropes harnessed to his waist go taut and he’s left dangling in mid-air. When he opens his eyes, Steve’s right there, under him, arms stretched out as if to catch him. He looks petrified.

“Hey,” Tony says, “I’m okay,” even though his blood’s pounding in his veins and he’s pretty sure his back’s going to hurt like fuck in the morning. “I’m okay,” he says again because Steve really looks freaked. Tony reaches out to reassure him before he realizes there’s three feet of air between them. Great.

Steve realizes at the same time. Tony can see his chest rise and fall as he takes a steadying breath and nods, pulling his arms back in.

“A little help would be nice, though,” Tony says pointedly, glaring up at everyone above him.

Natasha rolls her eyes and easily makes her way across the course, ignoring Tony’s protests that she’s just going to cut him loose. She helps Clint and Bruce pull him back up. 

Thor claps when he’s back on the platform. “A most trustworthy fall!” 

“Excellent, now we get to worry about Thor turning battles into trust exercises,” Tony mutters. Natasha smirks and points out a still-intact combination of ropes that will take them to the end. Tony narrows his eyes. “You go last,” he says to her. He’s not even kidding.

Once they’re all safely on the ground, Clint turns to Gary. “So, how was our time?”

**

There’s too much ambiance -- crickets and other shit -- and Tony can’t sleep, so he sits up in his room, tablet in one hand, a glass of scotch in the other. The schedule says they have a conflict resolution seminar in the morning and he definitely wants to look and feel his very best for _that_.

What’s surprising, though, is the knock on his door well after Gary’s shuttled everyone off to bed, claiming New Frontiers curfew.

“I forgot my charger,” Bruce says, holding up his own tablet. Tony holds the door open wider. Bruce settles into the desk chair in the corner while Tony digs up a charger and then pours Bruce his own glass of scotch. It’s comfortably quiet for a while, each of them working, and then there’s another knock.

“I saw the light on,” Clint says, peering around Tony’s shoulder. “You was right.”

Tony’s eyebrow goes up almost involuntarily. “About what?”

“You have liquor,” says Natasha, accepting the bills Clint presses into her hand as she steps past Tony into the room. “Looks like a whole wet bar.”

“Please, come in,” Tony says. “Help yourselves.”

Clint’s already pouring drinks. He grins and hands a glass to Natasha before settling next to her on the bed. It’s not long before Thor and Steve show up. Steve surveys the room and leaves, comes back a minute later with chairs from his room --

“You have two chairs?” Tony asks. It figures they’d put Captain America in the penthouse of corporate retreat bedrooms. “That hardly seems fair. How big is your bed? How many sinks are in your bathroom?”

“One?” Steve makes the same face he makes when someone makes a pop culture reference he doesn’t get.

Tony ignores it. “Huh.” Maybe not the penthouse after all. He crosses his arms and settles into his own seat. He listens to Clint’s impressive Gary imitation for a minute before one of the missing links in the StarkPhone redesign clicks into place and then he’s lost in the schematics for a while, vaguely aware of everyone else talking but not enough to participate.

He comes out of it when Clint appears by his elbow to top off his glass. Tony smiles back automatically but it turns into a grimace when he shifts in his seat. His back’s sore from the ropes course, tension running all the way up his spine. 

“Are you okay?” Steve asks after a minute. He keeps his voice quiet; no one else pays any mind. 

Tony shifts again. “What? Yeah, I’m fine.” Off Steve’s look he says, “Don’t worry about me, Cap. Borderline indestructible.”

Steve smirks and takes a sip from his glass -- something clear, water, Tony bets, watching the way his throat bobs when he swallows -- but he lets it go. Tony knocks back the rest of his drink and pours another -- there’re too many people in here now, he’s had enough togetherness for one day -- before he goes back to his tablet.

People leave one by one, the exhaustion of the day settling in, and then it’s just Steve and Tony sitting alone. Steve starts cleaning up without any words, just starts stacking glasses and ducking into the bathroom to rinse them out. 

“Thank God this place has bathrooms,” Tony says, picking up a couple of the the paper balls Clint and Thor had been batting back and forth. He tosses the paper in the trash. “I couldn’t do dorm living again.”

Steve elbows the door open wider so he can see Tony. He shrugs and says, “I don’t know, I never minded the barracks.”

“Ugh, they were the worst, always smelled like vodka and BO.”

“I guess ours were a little different.” Steve smiles to himself and rinses the soap off the last glass. “Well.”

He leans against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chest in a way that makes his cheap, SHIELD-issued shirt pull tight in the arms, the shoulders. He needs to get a deal with someone like Under Armour, put his all-American charm and insistence on boring t-shirts to good use.

Steve clears his throat and Tony shakes his head, stops staring. Steve pats Tony’s arm as he goes past, his hand huge and warm on Tony’s shoulder. 

“Sleep tight,” he says, jaw working like he’s trying to stifle a yawn.

“Night,” Tony says belatedly. He feels unsettled, off-balance. He sits up for a long time, working, until the ice in his scotch and in the bucket is completely melted.

**

Everyone’s bleary-eyed at breakfast, snapping at each other because they’re cranky and hungry and still stuck out here, facing down another day with Gary and his enthusiasm.

It turns out to be legitimate dread, because less than an hour later they’re sitting in a semi-circle while Gary says, “Imagine you are marooned on a desert island -- “

“Are there polar bears?” Clint asks. Bruce snickers. Gary glares. 

“You end up on a desert island with only a knife, a book of matches, and the clothes on your back.”

Clint raises his hand but doesn’t wait to be acknowledged. “How did we get to the island?” 

“You were on a plane --” Gary cuts a look to Steve, winces and flushes bright red, “uh, a ship that ran aground, okay? It doesn’t matter because night is quickly approaching. How do you plan for survival?” 

“I would call Pepper,” Tony says immediately. 

“There are no phones.”

“I always have my phone.”

“The battery’s dead.”

“I would build a charger out of the wreckage.”

There’s a pause, a long one like Gary’s talking himself out of doing something rash. Like quitting his job or murdering an Avenger. “Let’s split into pairs to discuss it.”

Tony ends up with Thor. “You’d have your hammer, right?” 

Thor looks like he’s thinking about what Gary said about no phones. “Perhaps.” 

“Okay, but if you didn’t, you could still get it. You could summon it?” Thor nods. “Excellent. So you’d get your hammer and fly off for help. You could tell Fury or Jane or the nearest police officer that we were stuck and then they’d come rescue us.” 

“Of course,” Thor says, nodding vigorously. Tony grins and Thor grins back.

“And in the meantime, I would, I don’t know, take a nap on the beach. It’s been awhile since I had a real vacation. Then you come back, a hero with a cavalry in tow, and we’d be home before lunch!”

Thor laughs. “A most excellent plan!” 

Thor’s going in for a high five that Tony’s kind of dreading -- he’s got fucking bruises all over his lower back from the harness yesterday, and he _knows_ Thor’s enthusiasm is going to jar his spine right out of its already-precarious alignment -- when they hear, “Whoa whoa it was just a suggestion!” 

When Tony turns around, Natasha’s got her gun drawn on Clint. Beyond them, Bruce is muttering something about having to cool off. He leaves fairly quickly, the door clanging shut behind him while he goes off to press leaves in his wilderness scrapbook or whatever he does to calm down out here. Steve’s left red-faced and sputtering in his chair and Tony can’t figure out if it’s embarrassment or anger or both. 

“There will be weapons on our island?” Thor asks. He frowns. “We did not account for that.”

Natasha slowly holsters her gun. The room stays quiet for a beat.

“Looks like we won,” Tony whispers to Thor. Gary drops his head into his hands and groans.

**

They all eat lunch separately. Well, Thor eats with Tony, telling tales of conflict resolution on Asgard (they mostly end with one person dead and, well, technically that’ll resolve things) while gesturing wildly with his apple. But everyone else is scattered -- Bruce isn’t back yet, and Clint is missing now, too, probably stewing in a tree somewhere. Tony saw Natasha for two minutes, when she came in, grabbed something from the buffet line, and then disappeared again. 

Tony only finds where Steve’s hiding when he’s wandering aimlessly outside, scrolling through his emails. Steve’s sitting on a bench alone, perfectly balanced meal perched on his knees. He’s got a notebook out, too, and Tony recognizes it from their welcome packets.

“Are you seriously doing the feelings journal?” he asks, laughing. He can’t help it.

Steve scowls. “Did you need something?” he asks after a minute.

Tony shrugs. “Just making sure you hadn’t run off to the nearest five star hotel. Not that anyone would blame you, we’d just be hurt that you didn’t invite the rest of us.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “I’m not you.”

“Hey, I would _definitely_ invite everyone if I were going to flee.” He looks at Steve over the top of his sunglasses. “Did you want to? Because one phone call and Happy will be here -- well, he’d probably be here. I don’t know what you said to him to get him to leave yesterday. Seriously, Steve, we could be eating room service. and no one would make puns about conflict resolution -- well, Barton might --”

Steve laughs at that, chuckling quietly and shaking his head at his lap. Tony bounces on the balls of his feet.

“I’m serious,” he says. “Complimentary bathrobes, Steve.”

“Tony.” Steve makes a face, a cross between annoyance and amusement that Tony suddenly wishes he could see more. He gathers his things and Tony gets a split second to see that Steve hadn’t been journaling, he’d been drawing, sketching the trees and the sky and the goddamn trust fall platform. 

They make their way back inside, Tony towards his room and Steve the cafeteria so he can toss his garbage and probably return the apple and cookies he didn’t eat so as not to waste anything.

“Hey,” Steve calls from the doorway. “Thanks.”

Tony blinks, confused. “For what?”

Steve shakes his head and doesn’t say anything, just smiles a little and then turns around and continues on his way.

Tony’s still standing there, thrown, when Clint comes barreling through, a panicked edge to his voice when he waves to Tony and says, “Conference room B, _now_.”

**

Fury is in conference room B.

Clint sees him first and stops short so Tony smacks right into him.

“Aw, man, you called our _dad_?” Tony shakes his head at Gary, who at least has the decency to look a little chagrined.

“Sit,” Fury says, pointing to the empty chairs. They do.

“For the record, it wasn’t me,” Tony says. “Natasha is the one who had all the weapons.”

She doesn’t even flinch. “You’re the one who brought in all the booze.”

“I thought I was going to a shareholders’ meeting! You tried to kill Clint on the ropes course! Those are _very different things_!”

She scoffs while Clint adds, “And in conflict resolution.”

Thor grins. “Lady Natasha’s methods were most effective!”

“It sure seemed like it resolved things,” Bruce says to Tony under his breath. 

“How would you know?” Clint asks, glaring at Bruce. “Seemed to me like you stormed out pretty quick.”

Bruce stammers for a second before sinking a little lower in his chair. 

“Hey, let’s cool it,” Steve says, appearing in the doorway.

“Captain Rogers, you’re late.” 

Tony tries not to snicker at the unadulterated shock on Steve’s face. It doesn’t work.

“I’m glad this is all fun and games for you, Stark. I’m glad it’s fun and games for _all_ of you. I had no idea you’d be enjoying this weekend so much, but Mr. Beugel here tells me --”

“Lies and slander,” Tony says. Fury blinks.

“Regardless, he and I have discussed it and we’ve agreed to alter the remainder of your weekend. Here are your new itineraries. And remember: if you kill each other, I will find a way to bring you back to life, make you fill out the paperwork, and then I will kill you myself.”

For a second Tony thinks he sees Steve roll his eyes. It’s not possible, though. It was probably just a trick of the light.

Fury nods to Gary, who begins passing around copies of the new itinerary. 

“Enjoy,” he says. The smile he gives them before he leaves is fucking sadistic. 

**

“I cannot fucking believe we have to go _camping_.” Tony kicks a rock out of his way and doesn’t care how childish it makes him seem. “This is _your_ fault.” 

Natasha ignores him and steps neatly over a branch. 

“I think it’s all our faults,” Bruce says. 

Tony rolls his eyes. “Oh, please.”

“God, you are shit at team-building,” Clint says. 

“I much prefer the solo gig.” 

Clint rolls his eyes like he doesn’t believe Tony for a second.

**

Tony looks around. “This is it? Are you sure?”

Steve makes a face. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“See, there’s the fire pit,” Clint says, pointing to a couple of rocks in the middle of a lot of dirt. This is so much worse than Tony imagined. And he was imagining a shitty, plumbing-less cabin in the middle of the woods.

“Oh, obviously,” Tony says, while Thor peers closely at the rocks. 

“There is no fire here,” Thor says, standing up. “We must journey on.”

“We have to build the fire ourselves,” Bruce explains, dropping a couple of sticks into the pit. 

“Five star hotel,” Tony mutters to Steve, who shakes his head but smiles anyway, and then tosses one of packs containing a tent to Tony.

“Get to work, soldier.”

**

The worst part -- other than everything -- is when Tony realizes they’re going to have to eat hot dogs and fucking beans from a can for dinner. 

“I’m just saying, it’s 2012,” Tony complains, turning his hot dog in the fire. “Don’t they sell like, fettucini alfredo in camping stores? And all we get is hot dogs and beans? Come on.” 

“It could be worse,” Natasha says, and Steve and Clint both nod in agreement, their faces dark distant. Tony doesn’t ask. He gives Thor his beans and goes back to dismantling the flashlight he’d been tinkering with earlier. 

“Hey, are there extra batteries in there?” he asks Bruce, pointing to the pack nearby. Bruce paws through it, comes up with batteries and two packages of marshmallows.

“Jackpot,” Clint says, clapping.

It’s not that it takes a long time to explain the concept of s’mores to Thor, it’s just that Thor constantly misjudges the amount of time he can roast his marshmallow for, so they keep melting completely in the fire. Thor looks crushed every time one drips off his stick and into the flames.

“You have to take it out sooner, buddy,” Clint tries to explain, but he’s too distracted by his own process to keep constant watch. Natasha ends up moving over, sitting next to Thor and elbowing him when it’s time to take it out, laughing at his face when it comes out charred and still-flaming.

“No, that’s good,” she says, waiting for him to blow it out before she offers him the graham crackers and chocolate.

“What?” Tony asks, nudging Steve when he catches him sitting there, zoned out and smiling. He shrugs, smiles a little wider. 

“This is nice.” 

Tony snorts a laugh, because of course Cap would love this shit. Steve bumps his shoulder against Tony’s, friendly, and something in Tony warms all the way through. 

“Only you would like a campfire without any beer, Cap,” he says, and Steve makes a happy noise in the back of his throat, leans back against a log and closes his eyes. The fire sparks, casting dancing shadows across Steve’s face. Tony would never admit it out loud, but this isn’t so bad.

**

Tony wakes up with Steve’s head pillowed on his thigh, the fire smoldering.

“We’re supposed to be back by 9,” Natasha says. She’s already stuffing things back into her pack. Tony pushes himself upright. His back hurts even more from sitting on the hard ground all night. Fuck, that was a stupid idea. Though from the looks of it -- Bruce slumped on a pack nearby, Thor flat on his back a few yards away -- the tents are mostly untouched. So they’re all idiots, then.

“What?” he asks, blinking at Natasha. 

“Did you even read the itinerary?” 

“No?” Natasha doesn’t look surprised. “Please tell me there’s coffee,” he says. 

Clint drops out a tree and points to the tin pot sitting on the edge of the fire pit. “What’d you think that was?” 

Tony blinks. “Did you sleep in that tree?” 

“Tony,” Steve says, his voice still thick with sleep. He nudges Tony’s arm before sitting up. “It’s too early for this.” 

“He started it.” 

“It’s always someone else, isn’t it,” Bruce says. 

Tony stops wondering how Steve looks so comfortable and well-rested after sleeping on the ground and turns to Bruce. “Of course it is. Now would someone give me coffee.” There’s a beat where everyone just stares at him. Tony sighs. “Please?” He gratefully accepts the cup Steve passes to him. 

Thor sits up and looks at the fire, his face lit up like a little kid who just remembered it’s Christmas. “Friends, tell me: are there any of those hot pillow sandwiches left?”

**

“Can we at least get breakfast?” Tony asks. He’s not even hungry, but that shitty campfire coffee barely put a dent in him and it’s not like he’s excited for this scavenger hunt bullshit Gary’s explaining to them. If he can put it off and get some decent coffee, he’ll chalk it up to a win.

“Here.” Gary throws a banana at him. Not to him, at him.

“Did anyone see where he was storing that?” Nobody says anything. Tony lets the banana fall to the floor. It lays there for a second before Steve rolls his eyes and picks it up.

“You don’t know where that’s been,” Tony hisses. Steve presses his lips together and keeps his eyes ahead.

“As I was saying,” Gary says. “Here are your lists. You’ll have an hour and a half to find everything on it.” There’s a dramatic pause during which Tony reads through the list and tries to figure out who’ll be the best person to call to have them sent over immediately. Pepper, probably, even though he’s not sure she’ll help since she’s the one who tricked him out here. On the other hand, she owes him for that one.

“And you’ll be in teams,” Gary says.

Tony’s head snaps up. “I call Bruce!” Bruce will be the most amenable to his ‘call Pepper and wait’ plain. Out of the corner of his eye, he can see Clint inching closer to Natasha.

Gary shakes his head. “Director Fury already assigned the teams.” 

They all sigh in unison. It’s the first real sign of teamwork all weekend. 

**

The greatest injustice isn’t that he’s paired up with Steve, it’s that he is fucking tethered to Steve with a fucking bungee cord. Even Steve seems annoyed by it; Tony’s throwing off his pace as he stalks down the hall toward where their first item -- a New Frontiers brochure -- is.

“Seriously, we can just call Pepper and then go sit somewhere with coffee while we wait for everything to show up.”

“We’re not cheating, Tony. This is supposed to foster teamwork.”

“How is that not teamwork? You and I can call Pepper on speakerphone if you’re worried about being left out.” Steve makes a face and picks up a brochure.

“Look, we’ve got one already. What’s left?”

Tony looks at the list. “Ping pong paddle. Ribbon (green) -- what the hell is that? Like, any ribbon? New Frontiers brochure -- check. A knife -- oh, great, let’s give Natasha an excuse to handle a weapon. A pinecone.” He makes a face. “Who made this list? This is stupid.”

“It’s not stupid,” Steve says automatically. “What else?”

“That’s it. There are only five items. It’d be super easy to call Pepper --”

“We’re not calling Pepper. Come on, let’s go get the knife.” He doesn’t wait for Tony, just starts walking so Tony is tugged along behind him.

“Seriously, this ribbon thing is weird,” Tony says while they’re outside trying to find a pinecone. “Oh, there’s one.” He points and Steve grabs the pinecone off the ground, drops it in their bag with the brochure. 

Tony’s busy thinking about pretending he has to go to the bathroom so he can text Pepper for these last few items when Steve touches his arm. “Look.”

Tied to one of the branches of the tree is a green ribbon. 

“Huh.”

Steve tries to jump for it, first, but it’s too high, so he tries to hoist Tony up on his shoulders. That doesn’t work either, plus it’s ridiculous.

“We’re going to have to climb,” Steve says, his voice resigned.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

He makes Tony go first, boosts him up and then scrambles up after him, the cord between them stretched tight. “Okay, now just shimmy out onto the limb and grab it.”

“Yeah, no problem,” Tony says. “I do this all the time.”

He makes a face because this is fucking ridiculous, Nick Fury and his fucking Avengers. Tony should’ve quit after the whole Loki thing last year, changed his phone number and forwarded all his emails to spam.

“It’ll be fine,” Steve says, his back braced against the trunk to anchor his and Tony’s weight. “Come on, all we need is this and the paddle and we’re done.”

He has a point. 

The limb isn’t that big so Tony sits on it and inches forward that way. He has to lean pretty far to grab the ribbon, balanced awkwardly on his stomach. He gets his hand around it but it’s tied on pretty tight. “Mother _fucker_ ,” he says, leaning forward. He’s got it unknotted when he loses his grip and pitches over the side. 

The whole branch bows with him dangling from it, and then Steve’s face is there, flushed with panic as he peers over the edge. He hauls Tony back up easily, though, and Tony laughs weakly as he holds the ribbon up. “Got it!” 

Steve’s too busy checking him over for injuries, muttering to himself as he manhandles Tony, tilts his head up and to the side, runs his hands over Tony’s arms. 

“Hey, hey, I’m fine,” he says, but Steve doesn’t seem to hear him. “Hey.” He puts one hand on Steve’s chest. “Steve. _Steve_. I’m okay.” He can feel steve’s heart thudding like crazy under his palm and he’s suddenly all too aware of how close they are on this stupid tree limb. His knees are budged up against Steve’s thighs, close enough to feel all the warmth seeping through their pants. 

“I’m okay,” he says again, but somehow he sounds less certain this time. Steve nods, something finally registering.

“Good,” he says. Steve’s hand is on his neck, cupped around the tendons there, his thumb stroking the nape of Tony’s neck. Tony notices the way his eyes drop down and then up again so it’s not a surprise, really, when Steve leans in and kisses him, his hand tightening, his finger warm pressure points against Tony’s skin. It takes half a second for Tony’s brain to catch up with everything and then he’s opening his mouth, grabbing Steve’s t-shirt and trying to tug him closer. Steve groans and licks at Tony’s bottom lip, brings his other hand up to tilt Tony’s head so they’re at a better angle. 

Tony forgets where they are until he shifts and almost slips again. Steve steadies him automatically. His eyes are bright, lips red and shiny. “We -- we have to go,” he says, when he notices the ribbon still looped around Tony’s hand. 

“Fuck it.” 

Steve chuckles, his hands tightening on Tony’s waist. “Please stop falling out of things,” he says, eyes suddenly serious. It makes something underneath Tony’s skin go tight and uncomfortable. He tries not to squirm.

“Is it technically falling if I never hit the ground?”

“Yes.” Steve’s hand is back on his neck, thumb stroking the skin behind Tony’s ear. “So stop doing that.”

“You do realize this is the opposite of incentive for that.” 

Steve laughs, a little breathless, and Tony darts in, kisses him again. Steve leans into it, kisses back for a minute, and then Tony thinks of that dumb old nursery rhyme, _K-I-S-S-I-N-G_ and starts laughing, his teeth scraping against Steve’s lip. 

“Now we _really_ have to go,” Steve says, and he’s already pulling away, shimmying down the trunk, and Tony has no choice but to follow. 

“If you’re trying to run away from this it’s going to be kind of hard seeing as how we’re _tied together_ ,” Tony says, half a step behind him. He’s getting whiplash from this fucking afternoon, whiplash and blue balls, apparently, and the only thing he knows for sure is that he has to face Gary again, so there’s a distinct possibility things will go from excellent to fucking terrible in no time.

Steve stops short. “I’m not running away.” His jaw is set, the lines of his face serious. His grip on Tony’s arm is strong, reassuring, and something Tony didn’t know was twisted up unknots inside him. He nods, takes a step forward, closing the gap between them.

The stopwatch beeps. “We can -- we’ll talk later, okay?” Steve says. “We just have to be inside in five minutes and we still need the ping pong paddle.” 

“Oh, of course, that’s the most important thing happening right now,” Tony says. Steve laughs and uses his grip on Tony’s arm to propel him forward.

**

They end up stealing a paddle from Clint and Thor, Tony running distraction while Steve sneaks his hand into Thor’s bag.

Gary sees and doesn’t give them any points.

**

“This is hell,” Tony says. “I am in hell.

He can feel it all along his back when Steve chuckles. They’re trapped in the middle of some absurd spider web made out of multicolored ropes, back-to-back, waiting for everyone else to figure out the best way to unhook the knots so they can get out by only undoing three knots.

“I could crawl out,” Tony suggests.

“Give it a few minutes first, would ya?” Steve says. He goes back to giving orders that only Thor and Clint are listening to and following. Bruce is standing off to one side, probably doing math in his head; every so often he’ll wave to Tony and start to say something before shaking his head and going back to muttering to himself. Natasha’s on the other side so Tony has no idea what she’s doing. He’s not sure he wants to know.

“Steve, switch with me, I need to see the other side so I can get us out of here.”

“No moving inside the web,” Gary says. Tony glares at him.

“That’s ridiculous. How am I supposed to help direct us out of here if I can’t see half the web?”

Gary stares at him for what feels like a really long time. Eventually Bruce clears his throat. “I think you’re supposed to, you know,” he waves his hand but Tony stares blankly at him. “Communicate.”

“Seriously, this is hell,” Tony says, and then, “Okay, Cap, tell me what’s going on on your side. How many knots, what colors, how likely, on a scale of one to ten, Natasha is to stab someone in the next three minutes.”

“Four,” Natasha calls out helpfully.

“Looks more like an eight to me,” Clint says. 

“We’ll say six,” Steve says, his voice low so only Tony hears.

“It better be Barton. Okay, so what’ve we got.” 

“Twelve knots,” Steve starts, “red, yellow, green --”

All their phones go off at the exact same time. Tony can feel the way Steve’s entire body goes rigid.

“Mother _fucker_ ,” Tony says, pulling out his phone.

“Captain?” Natasha says, and suddenly Tony can see her in his periphery. Steve takes a deep breath and nods and the next second Natasha is slicing a line clean up the middle so he and Tony can walk out.

“We couldn’t have done that in the beginning? I’m kidding, Gary, don’t cry.”

Natasha’s on her phone already, asking for an estimate on transportation. Tony can already hear the hum of the engines as it approaches. Clint reappears, bow in one hand, Tony’s suitcase armor in the other. He tosses it at Tony’s feet and then he’s gone again, headed in the direction of the incoming jet.

“Out front, two minutes,” Natasha tells everyone, simultaneously nodding to whoever’s on the other end of her phone. 

“Hey, looks like nobody killed anybody,” Tony says, grinning. Everyone else is already running for the jet. Gary sighs and Tony does, too. 

“Hey, listen, this is as good as it’s gonna get. Otherwise we’d just be a bunch of Fury’s Stepford wives and that’s... well now I have to bleach my brain, so thanks for that, Gary.”

In the distance Steve yells, “STARK, LET’S GO.” 

“Let’s never do this again,” Tony says, clapping Gary on the arm before he jogs off.

**

They’re ninety seconds out when Steve leans in close and asks, “Do you want to have that talk now?” 

Tony tilts into Steve when he laughs. “Kinda busy, Cap. Come find me later!” 

Steve’s ears go red when he winks and Tony laughs harder, locks his helmet on and dives out.


End file.
